New Haven communities coming together after art installation vandalized

Chris Randall, who helped create the Inside Out NHV artwork in New Haven, was using tile print to restore the artwork after twenty six pictures of the art project were ruined by vandals on Sunday. Over 1,000 people were involved in the artwork project originally and over 230 people donated money to help make it happen. Photo by Jen Fengler/ New Haven Register

Chris Randall, who helped create the Inside Out NHV artwork in New Haven, was using tile print to restore the artwork after twenty six pictures of the art project were ruined by vandals on Sunday. Randall said each photo costs about $23 to fix. Photo by Jen Fengler/ New Haven Register

NEW HAVEN -- Portraits of faces young and old, black and white, were pasted on the walls of the State Street underpass to unite two communities. And when vandals tagged the portraits with graffiti this weekend, it only served to bring the communities closer together.

The drab walls of the highway underpass, which separates Upper State Street and Jocelyn Square, feature 4-foot by 6-foot black and white portraits of New Haven residents. The project, Inside Out NHV, was modeled after the international Inside Out Project. The widespread community artwork can be found in more than 8,900 locations.

The local project was launched by Ben Berkowitz and Miles Lasater, the driving forces behind SeeClickFix and Higher One, respectively.

Berkowitz said he knows who scrawled the words "watcher," "DOA" and "bump," which were discovered Sunday, over the portraits, and while he thought there was a possibility of vandalism, he didn't think it would happen just days after the portraits were complete.

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Hundreds of people volunteered for the project, thousands of dollars were raised and hundreds of hours were spent working to complete the project. So the volunteers were hurt when they found the portrait of a child tainted with a black dot on his forehead and the words DOA scrawled over his face.

"I thought there was a high probability that something could happen to it, but ... I was hopeful and optimistic that the worst of the worst would see the beauty in this," said Chris Randall, an organizer of the project.

Randall added that although this wasn't what he envisioned happening to the mural, it had a good end result because more than 100 community members expressed interest in repairing the vandalized mural. "Now more people are coming out and getting involved," added Berkowitz. "This is actually uniting people. It's a good community we live in."

The project, which got the approval of city officials and the state Department of Transportation, was not meant to be permanent and, according to Berkowitz, that is part of the beauty of it.

"Maybe in three months or so when it starts to weather, it could give way to maybe getting a public wall on state property," he said. "Maybe not a graffiti wall, maybe a chalk board."

Randall said he would love to get the graffiti taggers' faces on the mural.

"They are part of our community and that is the best solution -- to reach out to them," he said. "Short of that, I want them to pay the penalties. I would throw $100 of my own money in a pot for their capture. We're bigger than this. We are not going to tolerate this. All we have to do is not want graffiti there as much as they want it."

Randall took a paintbrush to the wall Sunday and spent 14 hours erasing the graffiti before trying to re-print sections of the expansive portraits on 8-by-11 sheets of paper, resulting in a mosaic-like look. Berkowitz said those involved with the project are going to get together and make a decision about whether to reprint all of it.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, the Humphrey Street underpass will become another piece of artwork as part of the Inside Out Project, and Berkowitz said volunteers are welcome.

Contact Alexandra Sanders at 203-789-5714. Follow her on Twitter @asanders88.